Is There a Theology of Insurance?

If you've ever paid an insurance premium without a second thought, have you considered what theological assumptions undergird the entire modern insurance industry? In this episode of Out of the Question, Andrea Schwartz and Pastor Charles Roberts explore a question most Christians have never asked: Does the Bible have anything to say about insurance — and if so, does what it says challenge the way we've structured our entire approach to security, health, and the future?

Drawing on R.J. Rushdoony's writings in the Institutes of Biblical Law, The Politics of Guilt and Pity, and his California Farmer columns, the hosts argue that the modern insurance apparatus — from Social Security to health insurance to corporate benefit packages — represents a massive jurisdictional transfer away from the family and church and toward the state and faceless corporate entities. Rushdoony's insight was not that all insurance is inherently sinful, but that when insurance becomes a substitute for the covenantal responsibility of families and churches, it reflects a humanistic reliance on financial security rather than faith in God's providence. The conversation ranges widely, from the biblical dowry system as a wife's original "insurance policy," to the deacons' fund as the church's proper instrument of charity, to the way birth control functions as a kind of insurance against God's sovereign blessing of children.

The distinction between insurance and assurance is ultimately the heart of the matter. Christians are called not to a reckless disregard for the future but to providential thinking rooted in obedience to God's law and trust in His promises. Whether you're evaluating your own financial arrangements or rethinking the role of family and church in bearing one another's burdens, this episode offers a framework you won't hear anywhere else. Listen and consider what it would look like to rebuild covenantal structures of care — starting now.